What happens when you introduce Dead or Alive, a series known for its voluptuous female characters, to the mod-friendly realm of the PC? Well, Team Ninja director Yohei Shimbori knows the answer and is concerned by it.
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is set to be released via Steam on March 30, marking the Dead or Alive series’s introduction to the PC platform. An updated version of 2012’s Dead or Alive 5, Last Round features added content such as costumes, hairstyles, characters and stages.
In an interview with MCV, game director Yohei Shimbori explained that Team Ninja finally decided to introduce the series to the PC after nearly two decades because of the platform’s growing popularity:
The adoption rate of high-spec PCs and related peripheral devices has traditionally been lower than consoles. But these days, the perspective of PC gaming has changed drastically and we expect more fighting games will be released for PC users.
Shimbori is also keenly aware of what releasing a game filled with scantily clad women on the PC will likely entail: an avalanche of nudity mods and God knows what else concocted within the deepest recesses of modders’ minds. “We have to deal with mod issues from an IP holder perspective,” he says, “We would like to ask PC users to play our game in good moral and manner. Otherwise, we won’t be able to release a title for PC again.”
One could point out the irony of Shimbori wanting PC gamers to play Dead or Alive 5, a fighting game with overly sexualized, impossibly proportioned women whose breasts defy the laws of physics, in “good moral and manner,” but producer Yosuke Hayashi explains the series’s character design as such:
Our characters, male and female alike, are created in a fantasy setting and are using extraordinary abilities to compete with each other in a clearly light-hearted, over-the-top universe Their abilities are very balanced and we want to present all of them as dynamic, strong, sexy and confident. What is important to remember is that Dead or Alive is a series developed in Japan, where the interpretation of beauty is very different to that of Europe or the US.
Anyway, we’ll have to find out in about two months whether or not the modding community will take heed of Shimbori’s concerns. Quite frankly, I highly doubt it.
In addition to its PC release, Last Round will also be out on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on February 19, 17 and 20 in Japan, North America and Europe respectively.